Greetings
from Vinnytsia – Hope you are all well and not suffering too
badly from withdrawal, now that there is no election news to
watch every second of every minute of every hour of every
day….

We have
found Ukrainians to be very interested in our election
process, and most of our friends and acquaintances were
rooting for Obama. Many of them are also envious that we had
two candidates that both were worthy of support; Ukrainians
will have their version of a parliamentary election in a month
or so (maybe, there is some discussion as to whether the
election would be legal), and we have yet to meet anyone who
is excited about any of their candidates. Most of them, if
given the option, would vote for None Of The Above. Which is
too bad, but that seems to be where they are right now. We
did presentations for all our classes on Obama and McCain;
just the facts, we tried not to show any bias for either.
Peace Corps absolutely forbids us to become involved in
politics – either theirs or ours – so we have to remain
outwardly neutral. The local newspaper called on election
day and wanted to interview Karen about what was going on, but
since anything we say to the press has to be cleared in
writing by Peace Corps Central ahead of time, and there was
obviously not time to get that done, we had to pass. For
those of you who are wondering, however, we did get to vote.
We are happy to report that the absentee ballot system is
alive and well in Dodge County, Nebraska, and our ballots
arrived about three weeks ago. And were then promptly filled
out and mailed back.

We should
tell you too about one adventure we have had that we didn’t
exactly plan on… Don developed a hernia, no doubt related to
our trying to carry everything we need for two years in three
suitcases, but anyway, it needed to be dealt with. So he
met with the Peace Corps doctors in Kiev, thinking that this
would be routine and it could be taken care of in Kiev (in the
USA it is normally done as an outpatient procedure), but they
said NO, it had to be American doctors in Washington, DC. So
off he went. Peace Corps paid for his transportation, hotel,
and all medical bills, but they offered nothing to me.
Except the opportunity to go along if we paid all of my
expenses. And they also said: Oh and by the way, when you
are in Washington you can’t stay with Don, he has to stay at a
“Peace Corps” hotel, and he will have a roommate. So by the
time we added up transportation, a hotel in Washington, DC for
me plus food and everything else we were about to $4,000.
Which was a
little more than we wanted to spend on a “vacation” where we
couldn’t even be together. So off he went, and
even though they did it on an out-patient basis there and he
got along fine, with government paperwork and appointment
scheduling etc he was still gone 16 days. But back to the
out-patient “experience” – when they send you “home” (to the
Washington DC hotel) on the same day you have the surgery it
is still a little hard to manage, so our children stepped in
and took care of him. They arrived in Washington “in shifts”
to stay for a few days each, some with grandchildren and some
without. So in case you are feeling sorry for Don being sent
off to Washington for surgery, please don’t! He had a
rather fine time (minus the small matter of the surgery….) and
was quite well taken care of. Plus got to see the Amy’s new
little one, Elias Tenzing Hader, born last May.. And he was a
good patient and got cleared to return to Ukraine in record
time (8 days post surgery) which made both of us very happy.

So in the
meantime, Karen was left in Ukraine to keep our joint classes
going and other matters like the continual struggles with our
apartment.. Our daughter Amy has suggested that we could
make a television show somewhat similar to “This Old House”.
Except the part of the show where we show how we fix it up
would be very short and in some weeks non-existent. Don’t
know if we have mentioned it lately, but we have been battling
our “shower” ever since we moved in, and the “shower” may have
finally won. It sort of worked for a while, but now that
three shower heads in a row have fallen apart even as we were
taking a shower, and the water flow is down to a bare trickle,
we have conceded.. Despite our best efforts, when all is
said and done, old Soviet plumbing is still old Soviet
plumbing, and other than bulldozing the entire bathroom there
is probably little that one can do. So we now “shower” in the
kitchen in front of the sink with a washcloth. It does have
the advantage that the kolonka is over the sink, so we can
turn the water temperature up or down and the water off or on
without needing to run back and forth between the bathroom and
the kitchen. So in many ways this is actually an
improvement. Or so we tell ourselves… And maybe when we
write our next letter we’ll have something to say about the
toilet problem getting resolved, but since this has only been
an issue for about six weeks obviously we have no progress yet
to report. But hey, there’s some good news here too: Don got
all the wiring and switches problems resolved and we now have
cool things like a lamp so we can read in bed, and we got a
metal four-shelf unit (the kind we buy in the states to put in
the garage) to serve for storage in lieu of a file cabinet, so
the apartment is at least functional other that the lingering
plumbing problems.

Our jobs
continue to be interesting if not exactly quite what we
thought we would be doing. I (Karen) am currently in the
process of putting together a slide show of pictures of happy
kids/sick kids/disadvantaged kids etc to show behind the
band(s) while they perform at a rock concert/benefit for a
home for disabled type kids that my organization is having
here the end of November. And please don't tell the
Ukrainians, but if you look very closely at the pictures in
the slide show you will see several of some very wonderful
American grandchildren. We have six bands coming to the rock
concert. There were 27 that applied to come, so we spent one
afternoon listening to demo tapes and getting the list down to
six. Interesting – but Bart and Kelly, I need your help in
figuring out how this fits on the resume!

One of my
(Karen) other activities is an English Club for the youth
volunteers at my organization. We meet every Friday evening,
and they are very interested in any and all things American.
One of the challenges for an English Club here however is that
the participants have a widely varying ability to speak and
understand English, and the programs and discussions need to
include everyone. We have some in our Club that understand
very little English (but who really want to learn), but yet I
have one girl who is studying English at one of the local
universities. She wants to go on and become an attorney, but
for now is just trying to complete her English program. I
have been helping her on the side with what seems to be their
equivalent of a thesis, her topic is Morphemes and Affixes in
the English language. Don’t know if any of you have ever
heard of such (I hadn’t before she came along), but whoever
invented this stuff definitely had too much time on their
hands…..

Don
continues to work on the web-site he is creating for his
organization (even while in Washington – he did not take his
good lap-top with him, but a cheap Russian version we bought
here. It at least gave him access to the internet, and he
could work on his projects from a distance.) His
organization has gotten a little side-tracked lately
however; the local Vinnytsia government passed a law
(without any advance notice or warning to anyone) that the
sale of liquor after 9:00 in the evening is prohibited.
Needless to say there are more than a couple business people
who are not amused. And since Don’s organization exists to
help local business, they are knee deep in a possible
lawsuit. And yes Vinnytsia and for that matter all of
Ukraine has more than their share of alcoholics and we get
tired of seeing people with their cigarettes in one hand and
their beer in the other on the streets at all times of the day
and night (including 9:00 in the morning), but that doesn’t
mean that Prohibition is the answer. And certainly not to
make such a drastic change overnight at the Rada session with
no notice to anyone that it was even going to be on the
agenda, which really upset my organization and its clients
since one of the eternal issues in Ukrainian politics is the
need for transparency and doing away with the old Soviet ways
of doing things. So we will let you know how that one goes.

Not much
else going on - so far it is chilly here, but not cold and
all in all it has been a lovely fall. If we don’t get a
chance to write again soon we wish you all a Happy
Thanksgiving. Unfortunately we do not get the day off;
Peace Corps Central (we love government) does give the day off
to the Peace Corps office in Kiev (the staff there is 2
Americans and 38 Ukrainians), but the 350+ Peace Corps
volunteers in Ukraine do not get the day off. Go figure.
Anyway, write soon and take care.